Bay Area Muslim panels try to shed a light on a diverse religious group

By David E. Early dearly@mercurynews.com

Posted:
04/10/2014 05:54:17 AM PDT

Updated:
04/10/2014 06:48:57 AM PDT

SAN JOSE -- Nearly 13 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Muslims in America -- and the 250,000 living in the Bay Area -- still face fear, reprisals and a variety of misunderstandings that make daily life continuously difficult.

Now, as part of an increasingly active effort to publicly confront Islam's many challenges, American Muslims and scholars are sponsoring presentations, studies, analyses and in-depth demographic explanations of their community. The idea is that by being more open, Muslims will craft a peace that still eludes them.

On Wednesday in San Jose, one such panel revolved around "Growing Up Muslim."

"If we have learned nothing else," said Rasheeda Plenty, a second-generation African-American college student, "it's that we can't keep to ourselves and stay quietly in the background. If Muslims want people to know us and understand us, we have to get out there and show the public who we are and what we're really about."

The program inside the Joyce Ellington Library laid out in great detail the results of a study of Bay Area Muslims by Farid Senzai, a political science professor at Santa Clara University. Along with Hatem Bazian, an ethnic studies professor at UC Berkeley, the authors measured everything from ethnic breakdown to marital status, from socioeconomics to employment, from levels of education to languages spoken.

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"The Muslim community is very diverse" -- not cardboard cutouts of violent, single-minded terrorists and religious fanatics, he said. "A sizable proportion of the Muslim community has been here since the very founding of this country."

Senzai and Bazian took two years to study local Muslims. The findings included:

The quarter-million Muslims in the Bay Area make up 3.5 percent of the region's population.

Sixty percent are foreign-born; 34 percent are U.S.-born.

Forty-six percent are men; 42 percent are women.

Fifty-seven percent are married; 32 percent have never been married. Five percent are divorced; 2 percent are widowed.

The average household income of Bay Area Muslims is $70,000; 29 percent earn more than $100,000.

Senzai said as revealing as the study was about Bay Area Muslims, the hatching of the recent panels is aimed at learning more about young Muslims who still have challenges but who live in a world that is more curious about them, more willing to ask questions, listen and seek understanding.

Dr. Hatem Bazian, Abass Darab and Rasheeda Plenty listen to a panel discussion on Muslim identity at the Growing Up Muslim forum in San Jose, Calif. on Wednesday, April 9, 2014. Participants shared their perspective on Islam's role in their lives and what a Muslim identity means in America. The event was sponsored by New America Media. (Gary Reyes/Bay Area News Group)
(
Gary Reyes
)

One panel, made up of young adults, was the embodiment of variety. They included an African-American woman without a hijab (head covering), an African-American woman with a hijab, a Pakistani-American with a hijab, an Afghan-American with an ethnic-style beard and even a Muslim who was raised Jewish. All of them spoke about the challenges around strict dieting, the daily prayer regimen and often distinct personal appearance that come along with being young and Muslim.

Sadia Saifuddin, the first Muslim UC student regent, said her opposition to the university investing in three American companies who do business in Israel, was a pretty typical stance by many human rights activists. But for her, it brought extra vitriolic criticism her way.

"During my (regent) nomination process there was a ton of negative coverage about my character and how I was anti-semitic and all these terrible accusations," Saifuddin said. "It was really hard for me to say 'I'm a proud Muslim and also a proud human-rights activist and that I stand by my values and my beliefs.' "

Salmon Hossein, a law student at UC Berkeley, said the mere presence of his thick, black beard brings all kinds of grief, including cruel comments about him "looking like the Taliban," or him never being able "to get a job." He talked about how young Muslims who don't fit the typical mold of youth can find themselves battling waves of negative attention.

"People forget Muslims are diverse," Hossein said. "They are conservative and liberal; they are religious and non-religious; they are brown, white and black. But if one doesn't drink or date, or chooses to pray or attend mosque or fast, a lot of burdens and expectations get placed on you by your peers. And then, they go on to make even more assumptions on your behalf."

David Weinstein, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley in a Jewish family, took years of searching his soul to arrive at what he considers the beauty and peace of Islam. He took classes, traveled through Africa, read the Bible and prayed nightly to implore God to guide him to the perfect religion for him.

"Am I doing this because I feel an emptiness as a culture-less white American with a Jewish identify? Do I want to embrace this radical identity to make myself feel more interesting? But I kept grilling myself until I realized, I really do want to be Muslim. This is really what I feel and believe."